The $60 CPU Question: AMD Athlon 200GE or Intel Pentium Gold G5400? A Review
by Ian Cutress on January 14, 2019 8:00 AM ESTCPU Performance: Office Tests
The Office test suite is designed to focus around more industry standard tests that focus on office workflows, system meetings, some synthetics, but we also bundle compiler performance in with this section. For users that have to evaluate hardware in general, these are usually the benchmarks that most consider.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
PCMark 10: Industry Standard System Profiler
Futuremark, now known as UL, has developed benchmarks that have become industry standards for around two decades. The latest complete system test suite is PCMark 10, upgrading over PCMark 8 with updated tests and more OpenCL invested into use cases such as video streaming.
PCMark splits its scores into about 14 different areas, including application startup, web, spreadsheets, photo editing, rendering, video conferencing, and physics. We post all of these numbers in our benchmark database, Bench, however the key metric for the review is the overall score.
As an all-around test, one hopes that PCMark should be able to shine a light into this analysis. The end result is that PCMark says Intel should be ahead by around 8%.
Chromium Compile: Windows VC++ Compile of Chrome 56
A large number of AnandTech readers are software engineers, looking at how the hardware they use performs. While compiling a Linux kernel is ‘standard’ for the reviewers who often compile, our test is a little more varied – we are using the windows instructions to compile Chrome, specifically a Chrome 56 build from March 2017, as that was when we built the test. Google quite handily gives instructions on how to compile with Windows, along with a 400k file download for the repo.
In our test, using Google’s instructions, we use the MSVC compiler and ninja developer tools to manage the compile. As you may expect, the benchmark is variably threaded, with a mix of DRAM requirements that benefit from faster caches. Data procured in our test is the time taken for the compile, which we convert into compiles per day.
I like this Chromium test, given that it probes a lot of areas within a system. The Intel G5400 wins here again, scoring 6.9 compiles per day, compared to 5.9 for the AMD 200GE.
3DMark Physics: In-Game Physics Compute
Alongside PCMark is 3DMark, Futuremark’s (UL’s) gaming test suite. Each gaming tests consists of one or two GPU heavy scenes, along with a physics test that is indicative of when the test was written and the platform it is aimed at. The main overriding tests, in order of complexity, are Ice Storm, Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike, and Time Spy.
Some of the subtests offer variants, such as Ice Storm Unlimited, which is aimed at mobile platforms with an off-screen rendering, or Fire Strike Ultra which is aimed at high-end 4K systems with lots of the added features turned on. Time Spy also currently has an AVX-512 mode (which we may be using in the future).
For our tests, we report in Bench the results from every physics test, but for the sake of the review we keep it to the most demanding of each scene: Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike Ultra, and Time Spy.
In all the tests except Time Spy, Intel takes an 11-12% lead over AMD, while in Time Spy that increases to 20%.
GeekBench4: Synthetics
A common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench 4 is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.
I’m including this test due to popular demand, although the results do come across as overly synthetic, and a lot of users often put a lot of weight behind the test due to the fact that it is compiled across different platforms (although with different compilers).
We record the main subtest scores (Crypto, Integer, Floating Point, Memory) in our benchmark database, but for the review we post the overall single and multi-threaded results.
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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
To be sure, the normal price on the G5400 is ~$64. Past that, we have no specific control over whatever pricing shenanigans Amazon and its partners are up to at any given moment.Irata - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Define "normal". Yes, the MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) is $64, but you cannot - and have not been able to for a while - find the G5400 anywhere near this price (for stores that actually have them in stock).In terms of pricing - it's not just Amazon or Newegg - many posters here checked sites in various countries and it is more expensive everywhere.
So imho, "normal" pricing would be the actual street price. And if you look at current prices, the Athlon GE's counterpart is actually a lower clocked 2C2T Celeron G4920 with half the G5400's L3 cache or alternatively, the G5400's counterpart would be the Ryzen 2200G / Ryzen 3
As Ian stated that he bought this in Retail - where and when ?
It would have good to either base the review on actually available parts / street prices or add a caveat stating that the G5400 is not available for the msrp.
yannigr2 - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Bravo, you said everything.People will read this review, go to ANY shop, see the processor at double price and buy a Celeron. because the review told them that the Intel processor is faster in most tasks. This is how consumers behave, especially when they don't have technical knowledge. That's how an RTX 2080Ti sells a GTX 1050 when the RX 570 is faster in every way.
This article is posted for a specific reason, and that's not a fair comparison.
JMO
shabby - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
That's your excuse? We're not first graders here, when an article is based on the price you better make sure no shenanigans affect the price, try harder next time.drzzz - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
What a crappy response Ryan. Given the entire mess about pricing that was made over the i7-7700K a few years ago by this very site. Arguing that street price is the valid metric vice MSRP at the time. Given the article was released without even one editor's note about the G5400 not being available anywhere for the MSRP was just a mistake. Own up to it and correct the article. When I can get a 2400G for the same price as the G5400 there is no comparison in performance or value. Looking at how much of the comments are about the price issues vice any other point from the article and face palm is all I can think about.yannigr2 - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Really? Is Amazon dictation the G5400 price on the planet? I thought Intel was doing it. Because there is no chance to find this processor at that price on the planet. At least not as new.It WAS nice reading Anandtech this last 15 years.
SaturnusDK - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
No Ryan. The "normal" price is not $64. It's the 1k unit price. You'll probably never see this retail at less than $69... at best.The_Assimilator - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
FFS, all you dipshits complaining "bu... bu... but... G5400 isn't $60" should actually look at the MSRP on Intel's site: https://ark.intel.com/products/129951/Intel-Pentiu...I agree that the chip isn't selling at anywhere near that due to shortages, but Ian has to take a baseline from somewhere and MSRP makes the most sense.
Irata - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
Point taken about the baseline but what's the point of the review if you cannot get the CPU for the MSRP ? The one that's closest price wise is actually a Celeron G 4920.The alternative would have been to either mention that current prices are a lot higher or post the article once the G5400 is again available for MSRP.
Haawser - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
When RX series GPUs were being pushed into stratospheric pricing by mining did reviews quote their 'normal' price, or the price people could actually buy them at ? So why are the rules suddenly different when the situation is reversed and it's the AMD product that's the cheaper option ?